What Will the Top 5 Gadgets of 2012 Be?

By Alexis C. Madrigal

The former editor of Wired's Gadget Lab, Dylan Tweney, has some nice predictions for next year's best gadgets. Back in 2009, before the iPad came out, I remember him telling me that he thought Apple was going to come out with a tablet and it'd be a great product. Thinking about the history of abysmal failure of tablets, I kind of thought he was nuts. He was, obviously, right on that one, and I learned I should pay attention to what he thinks is going to happen.

The top two are particularly interesting to me. Tweney makes an interesting case for Apple releasing an actual television that would attempt to integrate your TV watching experience ('the second TV' though not the living room set) with your other interactions with Apple products. His other big prediction is that the Microsoft-Nokia tie-up will be a success. He thinks the Nokia Lumia 800 is going to be a very strong competitor to the iPhone and the best Android phones.

Last, I think we're all interested to see what happens with the next iteration of the Kindle Fire. This year's version felt rushed out for the holidays; perhaps version two will be the iPad competitor everyone has been waiting for.